The most dangerous device in your house

Gallivanting hedge fund sock puppet, or just a guy who needs to try harder?

P.S. Since the publication of the YouTube video above on Comedy Central’s “The Daily show”, and in newspaper’s all across the United States and Europe, it has been pulled from YouTube for “copyright violation” at the request of “The Street.com”. Plenty of copies still exist though, try googling on “cramer hedge fund video.”

We’ve all heard stories about televisions catching fire while we’re away on vacation or asleep in our beds, these normally benign and safe devices do need to be unplugged while we are gone for long periods of time. But, once again it appears that it’s not the TV itself that presents the most danger, it is the content coming through it.

All last week I became more and more incredulous at what I was reading, watching and hearing. It came to a head on Thursday night’s Daily Show and the interview of CNBC’s Jim Cramer by Jon Stuart. I’d seen the tape Stewart showed before, after all, I have a computer and enlightened sons to direct me on it.

It wasn’t the interview that disturbed me so much, that “come-uppance” has been a long time coming for both Jim Cramer and CNBC. I think it was the little joke Cramer started his next show with, a grueling pie building episode with Martha Stewart and his “Don’t care about all that, back to business” attitude. Later, I noticed that Both NBC and MSNBC did not feature the Stewart interview, at least I couldn’t find it. The other networks did, pictures on the evening news on Friday lead the top stories. But apparently not the NBC gang.

I’m a regular watcher of the Today show. But every once in a while, one of these morning shows “gets my goat” and in good conscience I have to change. I don’t want my family or my kids immersed in baloney each morning, when they already have a world full of it to face each day. So, we move on to another “easing into the day” show and try to think the best of them, for a while

I spent the early part of the week reading some information from Patrick Byrne of Overstock.com. It sure seemed like the kind of conspiracy theory stuff you usually need to be wearing a tinfoil hat to read, but I guess I just caught up to it near the end, because it looks like it’s proving out. If you have a good deal of patience and can stand a little incredulity, you can check it out at WWW.DEEPCAPTURE.COM Especially Mark Mitchel’s piece, the story of “Deep Capture.” It’s a good story, full of manipulating hedge funds, mob connections, “In the pocket” reporters, and even a “Dark Sith lord.”

And Jim Cramer’s in there, live and in person, with all his bells and whistles, a player or a pawn but part of the great financial game. The game partly responsible for draining half of my 401k.

Usually I like to take a humorous slant on things, and like Jim Cramer said “Why don’t I try to be better in the future?” (Except, I will try). I guess, like Jon Stewart, I just lost my sense of humor for a while on this one. The recommendation here is no matter what kind or style of TV you own, traditional, plasma or LCD big screen, be careful what you let pour through it on to your family. Like the Internet, there are sharp corners and lots of dead ends.

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About Prentiss Gray

Prentiss Gray is a writer and stay at home Dad with 27 years in the information systems and technology business. After the death of his first wife, he decided to stay home and care for his three sons. During that time he discovered that his life long passion for technology had new worlds to explore. Lurking throughout his home, fascinating technologies were just waiting to be investigated.
Little by little, he began to crack the enigmas of washing machines and vacuums. He worked diligently to break the secret codes of wireless telephones and kitchen faucets and fought to understand why toasters and rice makers needed chips more advanced than those that flew on the Apollo moon missions.
The ongoing battle is endless, but he has developed a new attitude toward domestic technology. To clear out the complicated, to shun the needless effort necessary to deal with devices and products that do not serve their owners as much as confuse and frustrate them. In short, to seek out the domestic products that are have excellent quality, a reasonable price and are truly intuitive to use. His new battle cry is “If you have to read the manual to use it, I don’t want one.”

Thanks everyone, I’m glad to be back. This was slightly off topic but we’ll take up this kind of media awareness topic again when I get a chance to write about the various resources of the Internet. Next week I’ll be delving into a series on digitizing our lives. Preserving old photos, video tapes, CD’s and DVDs, and making them accessible everywhere as cheaply as possible.

Even more interesting when it turns out that Rocker partners, a Hedge fund specializing in short sales (betting the price of a stock will go down) underwrote the formation of Cramer’s financial news website Street.com. Maybe CNBC is not the best place for Mr. Diazl

Cramer’s a tool – and clearly from the interview a liar as well. It’s too bad it takes a show on Comedy Central (for pete’s sake) to call CNBC on what a sham their investigative reporting is. “Shame on You” with Arnold Diaz does a better job of actually investigating things – maybe he needs to move to CNBC?

What the hedge funds have done in the market is criminal and Jim Cramer and h is ilk are totally complicit with it. Situations like this are why we need the SEC more active and more regulation of the markets. People across the country have lost their savings, homes & livelihoods due to shenanigans like this. Ship all those responsible off to jail since no one can get our money back for us. By the way – nice to see you back at the Record. We’ve missed you!

We certainly expect a lot from the SEC, it doesn’t seem as if they can handle what they have.

About this Blog

Everything from coffee makers to Internet surfing smart phones, it’s all about the every day technology which we use, and get confused by, every day. This is the place to get what you need to know about the latest trends as well as things that have puzzled you in the past. Recommend a product, ask a question, suggest a column, We’re here you help you understand the technology of everyday life!